


john 14: 1-4

by orphan_account



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Roman Catholicism, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 15:56:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1232392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The hardest thing was referring to him in the past tense.</p>
            </blockquote>





	john 14: 1-4

“Hey, Soviet Supermodel, you’re wearing bright yellow.” Tony shouted, his voice lacking all of its usually playfulness, as the lot of them climbed into the large black limo.

 

Bucky looked down at his shirt as he stumbled his way into a seat. The pastel yellow was light and cheery against his carefully pressed khakis. His hair was cut shorter than he had ever had it. The watch, Steve’s watch actually, on his arm must have cost more than two years rent back at their place in Brooklyn. He wedged his place in between Natasha and Clint and shrugged. Clint accidentally elbowed him in the ribs while he tried to wrestle the seat belt across his body. It might have been wrong, but the pain blooming in his side was the best thing he’d felt all week.

 

“Did they wear something different for funerals back in the day, old man?” Tony was already rummaging through the mini-fridge. He measured out a finger of whiskey and knocked it back with ease. Thor winced. His muscles bulged in a shirt that was slightly too tight for the demigod of thunder. Bruce looked embarrassed on Tony’s behalf. He ran a hand through his salt and pepper curls only making himself look more disheveled.

 

“I wear black everyday,” said Bucky. He fiddled with his buttons and smoothed out his pants. Natasha placed her hand on his knee. “I just wanted to wear something different for Steve. Besides, he likes-”

 

Bucky paused. The silence in the car was heavy and uncomfortable. It was strange, so damn strange, of thinking of Steve in the past tense. Steve liked to draw. Steve liked the apple pie pancakes from the little dinner in Midtown. Steve liked tracing little patterns on Bucky’s forearm. Steve liked lazy afternoons in art museums and bright Sunday mornings singing with the local choir. Steve liked a lot of things. But he’ll never be able to say the words ‘Steve likes’ again.

 

The door was their saving grace. It flung open and slammed shut a final time as Pepper and Phil climbed in. Phil threw himself into the seat between Bruce and Clint. He fiddled with his tie, readjusting. Pepper snapped the mini fridge door closed with her heel as she pressed between Tony and Thor.

 

“Alright,” Pepper was breathless as she rattled off. “Maria, Darcy, Jane, and Ian are behind us and are going to meet us at Saint Patrick’s, right?”

 

Thor nodded. “Correct.”

 

“Nick and Sam are already there. We agreed that we’d all take the flag and hang it up in the tower. I called the movers. They’re coming next Wednesday. We haven’t decided what we’re going to do with his things. When I was talking to Jane, she thought we should have a sale and donate to a children’s charity. I think we should keep it though. I wouldn’t want all my stuff sold. Put it all in storage or a museum or something. Oh, he’s being buried in Arlington tomorrow. We’re invited. I don’t know who wants to go. Bucky, what the hell are you wearing?”

 

“Steve liked bright colors.” He shrugged again. The limo rumbled to life. They all lurched forward as the driver peeled out of his parking space. Natasha’s hand was still on his knee. He covered it with his own. His calloused fingers intertwined with her soft ones, bits of bright blue nailpolish peeking out against the color of tanned flesh. She didn’t forget.

 

They weaved in and out of heavy New York traffic in near silence. The city was packed as a country came together to mourn a figurehead and a hero. Thor and Tony looked out the window. Pepper tapped away on her phone. Bruce and Phil looked almost serene beside each other. Clint slowly savored his own glass of whiskey that he had sneaked before Pepper had shut the fridge. Bucky and Natasha huddled close to each other. He wondered who in the city who came to mourn the man.

 

“What’s it like?” Clint wondered out loud. He sipped absentmindedly at his drink. “You know, like to die?”

 

“It’s beautiful.” Phil’s response was swift. Everyone turned and stared. Phil ducked his head to avoid their stares and played with his tie again. “I was never a man of faith. I’m still not. I don’t believe in heaven or hell or anything. All I know is the fact that I died. I closed my eyes, left here, and went there. And it’s beautiful. I know it sounds cliched if I say he’s in a better place, but I can personally vouch for it. Steve is in a better place.”

 

Clint looked torn between embarrassment and wanting to cry. Phil just threw an arm around his shoulders and drew him close. Clint reached a hand to Phil’s face, almost as if he was confirming that, yes, Phil was real. Natasha demurely turned away and the rest followed in suit.

 

Natasha may have done a lot of things and been a lot of things, but one of them was almost always respectful. This was a private moment. Phil and Clint have earned at least that.

 

“Thanks,” Bucky whispered softly. Phil smiles again. “Steve deserves a good place. Steve deserves-. Steve deserved a lot.”

 

The limo came to a screeching halt. Thor grunted as slammed back into the seat. His blonde hair fanned out dramatically behind him. No one spoke. They just stared at one another. The weight of loss heavy and now, in front of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, all too real.

 

Pepper moved first. She pushed a few wisps of strawberry colored hair out of her face. her hands move in a flurry to straighten out her skirt. She cleans a smudge of her shoes.

 

“I’ll go first,” she announced as she crawled towards the door.

 

Pepper Potts wasn’t a hero. She didn’t fly a metal suit, throw a shield, or summon thunder. She couldn’t kill a man with a shoe, shoot an arrow, or disassemble a lock in less than ten seconds. She wasn’t super smart, didn’t work for a super secret government organization, wasn’t contaminated by radiation. She was a completely ordinary woman at a kind of ordinary job with a borderline ordinary life. But Pepper Potts was extraordinary where it counted.

 

Thor followed her. Bruce, Tony, Clint, and Phil shuffled their way out of the limo. Only Natasha and Bucky remained. Their hands were still intertwined with one another.

 

“I’m sorry,” offered Natasha in Russian. The syllables were familiar. The words were familiar. But they just didn’t feel right for the situation. He squeezed her hand harder. She didn’t flinch. “Are you ready?”

 

“No.”

 

“Too bad.”

 

The two of them climbed out of the limo unready to face the day.

 

The stairs were nearly empty. A few people clad in black milled around the bottom. A group of police officers, painfully young, patrolled the perimeter. Thousands of other people dressed in black and red and white and blue were held behind yellow police barriers. American flags were being waved. A song that sounded suspiciously ‘God Bless America’ was being mumbled by the crowd.

 

Bucky stood there, dumbstruck. It reminded him of the Fourth of July that he spent in Coney Island with Steve. All that was missing was fireworks and a slice of apple pie a la mode split between the two of them. It was Steve’s fourteenth birthday.

 

Steve’s birthday, he wouldn’t be have those anymore. The thought was bitter in Bucky’s mind.

 

“Come on!” Tony shouted from the door. He was waving his arms, gesturing to the inside of the church. “We need to go.”

 

The group, Steve’s friends, his friends, stream into the church. Pepper, Jane, and Darcy are the first in. The men with Maria bringing up the rear follow them. Bucky pretends like he doesn’t catch Tony stop and take one more look at the crowd. Other people loved Steve too, he guessed, and this was impressive.

 

Natasha leads him inside, never letting go of his hand. The church was just as he remembers it and packed to the brim. Pepper lead them to the two front pews. They all filed in. The majority of them leaned back in the pew. A few looked around or paged through the heavy hymnals in front of them. Pepper, Tony, and Bucky kneel. Pepper folded her hands and whispered prayers that were too quiet for Bucky to make out. He and Tony just kneeled there mostly out of habit. They didn’t do much. There wasn’t much for them to do. God knew what kind of people they were.

 

Horns blasted, and Jane jumped next to Thor. Some muttered ruefully about the noise, but Bucky couldn’t tell who. All he knew was the fact that he was here.

 

The mass was in Latin because that was the way Steve had always liked it. The priest was a young man from the church Steve had been attending for the last couple of years. Sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows. It painted the oak coffin in reds, oranges, and yellows. A few soulful voices rose over the rest of the incoherent and off tune mumbling. Steve would have liked this.

 

The young priest shook while he reads from the Bible. His voice quivered. His Latin wasn’t quite as good as it should have been. Hell, it wasn’t even half as good Steve’s.

 

So Bucky helped.

 

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.  And you know the way to where I am going.” He whispered along.

  
Steve went before him, before all of them. For just a moment, just as the light streamed across his face, Bucky allowed himself to believe that he’d see him again. That was enough, for now.


End file.
